As is well known to those skilled in the art, hydrocarbons may be oxidized to yield a variety of products typified by alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, acids, etc. Among the problems which have been encountered in such processes are (i) the problem of control of the reaction to yield preferred products; (ii) the problem of initiating the reaction to permit attainment of satisfactory yields of product by reaction at moderate conditions; and (iii) the problem of increasing the rate of oxidation so as to minimize the size of the reactor required to produce desired amount of product.